Hi my name is Gracias Matthew Manzango. I was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and now I live in Phoenix, Arizona. As a kid I moved around a lot. I'm pretty sure I visited, actually I lived in three or four cities before I was 10. You know, I was born in, uh, the South East of the country and then I moved to the capital city when I was younger and then I moved back into the South East in this province called Katanga.

[check out matthew talking about the culture of The Congo here]

You know for different reasons, but usually it would be because of like civil unrest this part of the country. So yeah, I lived in the capital city and like I just mentioned and yeah, that was a great time. I'm actually glad I actually got to live over there are alot of things to do, a lot of things to absorb. But this is one thing.

I know a story. My favorite place to live. I grew up mainly in the second city, the second economical city in the country. The second city is called Lubumbashi. It's in the South East in the province of Katanga. To talk a little bit about where I came from you know, central Africa, that's where the Democratic Republic of the Congo is.

I was born in a family of seven. I have a five sisters and one older brother is the eldest and I'm the last born I was raised like just any other, you know an African kid, I would say a normal family. You know, a lot of traditions, a lot of rules that are things you can and cannot do. And you know, in Africa we have this culture of respect and things like that. You know, when you're the youngest, you know, you know how it is.

It's basically the same thing everywhere in the world. You get the short end of the stick as they say. So yeah, my, my family, we were all raise a bit differently. We raised to be quite independent, each one of us. That's how I ended up on the side of the world, you know, all the way across the ocean. And also another thing is like I said, you know, when you, the last born is treated as a kid in, in my country, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, you are really seen as a child until you prove your masculinity.

You know, because we believe that you don't just become a man, you know, you have to achieve men who do, you have to achieve masculinity. So there's a lot of things you need to do to prove that you are now a man. You know, we don't have a ritual per-se where you have somebody go from being a child to being the man.

Like you know, in other cultures they do. I know of, for example, in Mexico they have quinceanera for girls, but we don't have that. We don't have any rituals. So like I was talking about, you know, masculinity, it's seen in the way you think, you know, it's seen in a way you act in the way you interact with your community and the people around you. You if, for example, you are considered to be a child, you need to be treated as a child. You addressed as a child, you've seen as a child.

Everything you do or say its like "yeah it's a child", you know? But once these things change, once you show the difference in your intellect or your way of speaking, you're interacting in your way of reacting to things, then you know, you get that respect. You know, people listen to you, they address you differently and things like that. So basically, you know, manhood is not just like, Oh yeah, you were men and stuff like that, but over time you achieve it, you know?

But I have to say also these tradition things, this traditional things are changing over time. It's becoming a bit different. There's more openness. There's more forward thinking. I would say.

-Gracias Matthew Manzango